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Making Historicity: Paleontology and the Proximity of the Past in Germany, 1775–1825
- Journal of the History of Ideas
- University of Pennsylvania Press
- Volume 82, Number 2, April 2021
- pp. 231-256
- 10.1353/jhi.2021.0012
- Article
- Additional Information
Abstract:
This article analyzes the making of a novel consciousness of historicity in Germany around 1800, one that regarded mountains as vaults of a shared and palpable past. Revisiting a paleontological debate about the origin of large mammal bones found in caves, it reads the science of Johann Christian Rosenmüller (1771–1820) as a social and political accomplishment. By attributing the fossils to an indigenous "cave bear," and communicating an elite scientific debate to a lay audience, Rosenmüller presented an account of Germany's primordial past that fed seamlessly into its present, nurturing an idea of nationhood grounded in the (sub)soil.